“Trying to find some goals, trying to continue with good defensive play,” McLellan said. “We’re looking for some of the unusual suspects to come up with maybe one or two. I look back to the last game against Edmonton — Jim Vandermeer gets on the scoreboard and we get a point out of that at least.”

(Oddly, it doesn’t look as if Vandermeer will be in the lineup tonight. But I digress.)

“Some of the guys that would be the unusual scorers, we’d like to see them find some offense,” McLellan said, “and then the rest of the game even.”

As for moving Marleau to center, McLellan talked as if the change could be good for two other forwards — Clowe and Couture.

“Patty has got some size and some speed through the middle,” the coach said. “Maybe he can help out a guy like Ryane Clowe. (Couture) on the other hand, has dried up a little bit. We’ll try and mix him with some different players and see if we can get him going as well.”

Winnik and Wingels essentially trade places, but the former doesn’t see it as a big change and knows his role.

“Just be the worker on the line,” Winnik said. “Get to loose pucks, create space, hold onto pucks down low and get to the net.”

Defensive pairings were less clear, but based on who left the ice when, look for Boyle-Vlasic, Murray-Burns and White-Demers.

******Antti Niemi will be in goal and that means it’s likely Thomas Greiss gets the start Tuesday night in Calgary. But if Greiss already knows that, he wasn’t giving it up when I asked him.

******As the losses mount up, the Sharks have kept their composure in the post-game interviews. Yes, there’s an eerie quiet at times and the very visible look of disappointment and frustration is easy to spot. But it’s a quiet disappointment.

But before the doors open to reporters and other times during the course of a game, players say the emotions do spill out and it’s anything but quiet.

“It’s definitely not a library in here,” Joe Thornton said today. “You see us after games and everyboyd’s just disappointed. But there’s a lot of emotion that goes into it and it’s a good thing. Guys show a lot within the locker room. It does get pretty heated, but it’s the time of year we need wins and for everybody to step up.”

Dan Boyle agreed it can get loud.

“Yeah, but that stays in the locker room,” Boyle said. “It happens. Usually it’s during a game or between periods. Sometimes in front of the camera you have to project. Sometimes you get a very honest response. It kind of depends on the the night.”

*****An Edmonton reporter mentioned to McLellan that the hockey world is a little shocked by San Jose’s current place in the standings and wondered if the coaching staff looked at it the same way.

McLellan’s answer was pretty candid.

“We’re built a little bit different this year,” he said. “We don’t have as much scoring depth and when we understand that as a group and we realize we have to grind games out, we have to win 3-2 games instead of winning 4-3, we have a tendency to play a little bit better.”

“Maybe earlier in the year we got caught up in being an offensive team and let some game get away from us. But right now I think we understand that and have to continue to play toward that.”

.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

He was too deep,in crease and protecting short side. I play goalie and I actaully have that sam e weakness when Im off my game and lacking confidence. No NHL #1 goalie gives up that goal once, let alone twice. TMac and DW go with loyalty to their guys no matter waht. The team win despite the goalie. THE TEAM PLAYS BETTER WHEN GREISS IS IN BECAUSE HE’S A BETTER GOALIE. TMac rfuses to play the best possible lineup to win because of contacts and ego status.

AllSport

#249 hockeyplayer

Are you kidding me? I’ve played goal for 25 years mostly at the high amateur level and Niemi was completely off his angle. All you have to do is look at the distance between where the puck went in and the post–at least 3-4 inches, which is huge. Same on the first goal, where Niemi was way off the angle, in both cases to his right.
Goalies usually get off their angle that way when they are nervous and anticipating the player going outside, so they drift to the short side.
For a goalie to get scored on that way, when he has the chance to face the shot directly and come out on the angle, he has to be way off the angle. I love the silly announcers saying it was a great shot. If a goalie is out that far and on his angle there’s no such thing as a great shot because there is absolutely nothing to shoot at except maybe a 5 or 7 hole force.

In answer to your question–he needed to be out on the correct angle and square to the shooter–he was neither. He was drifting to short side and not square because he was anticipating having to push to the short side and so was slightly angled.

AllSport

#251 you beat me to it! I over-cover short side when I lack confidence too.

NoCupWithDW

hockeyplayer,

that used to be my olk handle, until 3 years ago when DW started trading away the farm.

look at the first goal, he is clearly leaning to the right, and about 1/2 foot to far to the right. If anything, one would hope he cheats towards the center of the ice to be prepared for the cross ice pass.

The second one I thought he was in good position. Great shot. That said, it appears the book on Niemi is shooting across his body to the far side. He routinely gets beat far side. Does not matter which side of the ice the shot comes originates. If he does make the save, he kicks out huge, juicy rebounds straight up the middle. For more on that, replay Saturdays loss to Phx. Rebounds up the middle that had shooters drooling…

Also, you heard Drew mentioning it all night, controlling rebounds, controlling the game. Drew was saying it when actually did it, so he could point out the positive……
Point being, if you watch how Niemi controls his rebounds and the game, then compare how the opposition goalie does the same thing, you will notice this is not one of Niemi’s strong points.

Watch kipper tomorrow. He is excellent at rebound and puck control.

NoCupWithDW

Allsport and Icehawkey,

Nice posts. And I thought all goalies were neurotic 🙂

NoCupWithDW

And given the responses of 2 goalies who both said he was off his angle, I will have to recant my previous statement of “I thought the 2nd he was in good position”. Bad NoCup!!!

icehawkey

Wow! My typing is even worse when I’m drunk. Didn’t think that possibull

Dirk Diggler

From another goalie, our boy Niemi is exactly as described. He also has a tendency to lunge at shots, an obvious sign that he is not square and off his angles. As he lunges, his momentum quite often takes him out of the play.
His fundamentals are also lacking. He regularly keeps his catcher on his thigh or tucked into his body. He also is not that good at dealing with traffic and screens, not that anybody handles that easily, but he tends to guess at which side to try to look instead of following the flow of the puck. He also tends to drop when he doesn’t know where the puck is. That leaves the top of the net wide open.
When we picked him up last year, there was discussion among Sharks management about his shortcomings. The coaches began working with him at the preseason practices, but somewhere I think they got bored with trying. Can’t teach a Finnish dog with limited tools and understanding new tricks.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

Geez, Dominik Hasek, Patrick Roy & Ken Dryden are posting on WTC!!!

It’s not that everyone’s opinion is just as valid as everyone else’s, but the “I played blah, blah, blah” is just so much ego stroking bs. If y’all were so great playing angles, why are you here and not on the ice? Oh, you got old? Yeah, I did, too. My only hockey claim to fame and credibility is playing pond hockey w/ Robbie Ftorek in elementary school. His greatness didn’t rub off on me. Oh, well.

FYI for anyone who doesn’t know who Robbie is, he has the distinction of being the head coach fired by the LA Kings while the Kings were in 1st, which Kings team then went on to lose the SCF’s to the Canadiens; and Robbie then got fired by the Devils while also in 1st, and the Devils then won the Cup. Doesn’t that make me knowledgable? No. It’s just my brush with an arrogant coach.

And no, I don’t think that means the Sharks should fire TMac so they can then reach the finals. They’re going nowhere, and it doesn’t matter who the coach is. They’re slow, they’re aging, so they’re getting slower, and their “grit” is about as useful as spent sandpaper. Beating a bottom-feeder doesn’t change that.

D Willy must go

OH how I miss the days when the Sharks had 3 starting Goaltenders, 2 of them being ELITE in NABBY and KIPPER, NOT so much Vesa.

I am stoked that the Sharks FINALLY got a 2 point regulation WIN. That said though, we WILL NOT win in the PO’s with the type of goal tending we witnessed last night.

For all of the Marleau defenders out there, I didn’t see him put the biscuit in the basket last night, did you????

Who out there thinks SJ Sharks will make the PO’s???? Of those who do, How far do you (REALISTICALLY) see them going???

I am losing faith in this team and while the WIN last night was nice it did nothing to make me think this team has what it takes to win the CUP, Namely HEART.

slick shark

…posting goalies,

…and what high school was that you played for???

…

g-bum-man

D Willy–Marleau assisted on two of the goals. The pass to Thornton for his power play goal was perfect. If you think he played a bad game, thou smoketh the crack…

Doug H

marleau had a good game. not sure what you are on about?

he wouldve had two pts if couture didnt touch the puck on boyles shot. and he has been hitting people all over the ice.

thornton with another 3 pt game. i would say our captain is doing what he is supposed to.

the third line looks great with wingels down there. i think it shows our team balance when havlat comes back to be able to ice that third line. and then we will eventually have a bottom six of

winnik-moore-mitchell
galiardi-desjardins-wingels

a lot more scoring/puck possession than before. it should be a nice change i think.

@DWilly,

I think the sharks make the playoffs. we hold our fate in our own hands, and if the players keep hustling we could even retake the division lead.

as to how far we go in the POs. if we line up against canucks/blues i dont see us getting out of the first round, but if we line up against the stars/colorado for instance we can roll into the second round and possibly beyond.

tifososquali

yep, I don’t thing we should be minting gold medals for the sharks because they beat the Oilers by one goal….

KnightPucky

YAY! finally a win! let’s keep it going! All the way to the playoffs (I hope) and to the cup!….I must say that I have watched the Sharks from DAY 1 and this is the first year I am truly worried that we might not make the playoffs…..but, that being said, I stick to my earlier thoughts, that I like them having to battle for a spot….just hope they make it and have the desperation to go all the way to the cup!

yes I bleed TEAL! 🙂

AllSport

#259 Tom
Playing hockey, even if you’re not good enough to be a pro, does give you a lot more insight than if you’ve never played. What’s odd is that your argument is self-refuting. You’re claiming that because we aren’t pros we don’t know enough to comment, yet at the same time you’re saying that our actually playing doesn’t give us any more claim to authority. So which is it? Does experience playing make a difference or not? Or is it only possible to know anything if you’ve been a pro? A lot of coaches haven’t been pros, so I guess they don’t know what they’re doing.

I guess I don’t know how anyone can be a veterinarian since they’ve never been a dog.

nolimits (DET-Diva)

Hopefully this will jump start a winning streak for SJ. I’ve been reading a LOT of negative postings but I get where you all are at. Try not to throw in the towel just yet…it ain’t over till all 82 games are played, right?!!!

Playoffs just wouldn’t be same if I didn’t have to stay up late to watch a DET/SJ playoff round 🙂
Three times the charm or maybe not 😉

“If you don’t beat the teams you are competing with for playoff spots, you won’t qualify”

First goal was a hard slap shot from short range. As ol’ Johnny Peirson used to say, “the great pros will tell you if it is on net and doesn’t hit him, it’s in.” It was, it didn’t, so it was. However, it was a brute force goal and those are always more disappointing to have scored against the team. Quibble about Niemi’s positioning? Sure, because it was a goal; but I’m not as sure as the armchair goalie coaches that he’s out of position.

Second goal was a fun hockey play to watch. Burns did not make an ill-advised play–he had room and time and Hall just blocked it. Hall is going to be a great player, by the way. It was not clear from the start of the play that it was a breakaway as Hall didn’t get to the puck until well inside the blue line and Vlasic was hustling back with a fairly reasonable angle. Niemi had to wonder if he should try to for the puck. Hall had one touch to settle the puck, one to move it more to his left from where he could have turned his body to protect the puck from a Vlasic play and driven toward the net–an eventuality that had to be considered by Niemi–and then the third touch was a hard shot across Niemi into the far corner. If Niemi is out further, Hall goes another step with the puck, moves left and beats him short-side to the derision of the critics. He didn’t worry about his left because a Vlasic was closing and had that angle. Did Niemi play it perfectly? Again, from protractor POV I don’t know. It would have been good (as Ferraro pointed out on TSN) to have him stop one of those but the PLAY that beat him was a great one.

Beer League

nolimits,
thanks for the encouraging words. Pretty sad that we need a red wings fan to say don’t give up. There are some of us that haven’t, but get drowned out by those ready to break up the team, who have already thrown in the towel. They don’t like teal kool-aid. They don’t like optimism. One game at a time. Hoping for another win tonight.

SJGR8WHITE

I don’t drink the kool aide(well, not this morning) but, “I STILL BELIEVE!!!” A win is a win regardless who we beat. 2 pts is 2 pts! Gotta keep it up and win tonight!!
LGSDI

Long Time No Cup

Dear Mr. All sport,

Your analogy is false. Not even you could learn to be a dog (no matter how enjoyable one may find licking one’s own genitals, sniffing behinds, or rolling in excrement).

More appropriate is the fallacy “I can speak English, therefore I can teach English.” Both speaking a language and teaching it have components of learning and natural intelligence. But the ability to do something doesn’t mean you understand anything about it.

Playing CAN contribute to your insight, it doesn’t necessarily do so. In fact, often as not, the opposite is true: people who play a sport automatically that grants them admission to the inner sanctum — “Hey Tiger, I play golf, too!!” For virtually all of us watching the NHL, we really don’t have a clue what it means to be 1. an elite athelete, 2. a professional player.

Not all players — good and otherwise — have a clue about what they do when they are on the ice, in the batter’s box, returning a serve. That is most true with weekend warriors (in the case of hockey, late-night warriors). I will grant that of two folks with equal intelligence, the one with playing experience will usually be quicker to notice something.

Hockeynut

Niemi couldn’t commit to either shooter 100% because the specter of a cross ice pass always exists on a two on one. The way the defense has been the last month or so, Niemi was probably assuming there was a guy wide open on his opposite side so in his mind he had to be thinking, stop the shot, but be ready to slide across if the pass goes there. In Chicago, he knew his “backside” was covered and he could only concentrate on the shooter.

That is the difference in Niemi with Chicago and with San Jose in a nutshell. He doesn’t trust or believe his defense will make the right play in front on him, probably because time after time this season they haven’t. As for rebounds? Every goalie gives up rebounds it is a good goalies job to stop the first shot. Anything after that is the responsibility of the defense to clear the rebound, or keep the attacking forwards from getting to it. 90% of the teams in the NHL have defenses that can do that consistently, the Sharks, do not. All you have to do is watch other games. The shot goes on net, the goalie sees it (no screens) and goalie stops it, and SOMETIMES bobbles or drops it but most of the time there is no forward in his face to tap it home. I just don’t know why the Sharks defense can’t keep guys away from Niemi. He gets hit before and after the whistle more than any goalie in the league. He has more times where he has to deal with guys in his crease while he’s trying to make saves or clear rebounds than any other goalie in the league. He has to deal with one of the softest, least physical defense EVER in front of him. Far too often he’s out on an island by himself. No goalie can be “great” under these circumstances.

ZEKE

@272 Hockeynut you said: “That is the difference in Niemi with Chicago and with San Jose in a nutshell. He doesn’t trust or believe his defense will make the right play in front on him, probably because time after time this season they haven’t.”

I think this is a fair statement. Sharks have given up a lot of odd man rushes and cross ice passes. And a well executed cross ice pass results in one of the highest probablity scoring chances there is in hockey.

hockeyplayer

LongTime – I like not only what you said, but how you said it. Niemi got beat by 2 good shots.

“The Others” – you do write like you have played a ton of goalie. Don’t stop.

On the 1st goal, Burns had the off-wing skater and Crankshaft gave the puck carrier too much room. It’s a safe assumption that Niemi saw this, which explains why he squared up to Whitney and covered the short side. Niemi was thinking that the puck was coming stick side and it went past his glove side ribs.

On the 2nd goal, Niemi was at the top of the crease covering the breakaway, and the shot came at a time when no goalie could tell which side the shot was coming. Plus Pickles was closing on the shooters’ right side, making it slightly more probable that the shot would go stick side. Just a great shot.

Lunging? Not on either shot.

bigjohn

I didn’t think Braun played well , he was caught out of position a few times and Niemi made some good saves, I want Vandy in with Demers on that 3rd pairing……

icehawkey

You have to have played goalie to understand. Even NHL coaches dont get goalie play. He was off his angle badly on both shots. Goalies dont play the pass. Whether you trust your defense or not, you square yourself to shooter even if its Jumbo, who wont shoot. If he had been cheating to the pass he wouldve cheated far side not short side. He was too deep and not sqaure. He knew both times that a shot was coming because there was no real room to pass. He is probably overthinking and not just playing. Hes in a funk. This is not the time of year to let a goalie play through it either. I am a mid level beer leaguer but I understand the position. I do not, however, understand the blind favoritism that will likely ruin the season.

AllSport

274 hockeplayer

A goalie that ‘cheats’ because he assumes a shot is going somewhere is dead meat, especially in the pros. Watch the best goalies, and you will see them always as square and non-committal as circumstances allow (in fact one of Greiss’s best attributes is how square he stays). The other thing is that a goalie off his angle is off his angle–it’s an objective fact. There’s a line that goes from the puck through the goalie’s chest to the center of the net. Watch the video carefully and you can easily see how far Niemi is off–especially on the view from behind him.

That said, I think Niemi is a great goalie overall. His size/width alone gives him a great advantage, and he uses it well most of the time. No goalie is always on, and they all go through streaks. I still maintain that platoon goaltending works the best. They need to compete against each other. We’ve seen what happened with riding Nabby all the time, regardless of how he was playing. Niemi himself got the benefit of platooning in Chicago, as he was the backup originally.

AllSport

274 hockeyplayer

One other thing I’ll mention is that being on your angle can be very difficult, because what you’re defending is behind you. There’s also an optical illusion that can affect you, and affects you more when you’re not comfortable. If you think about it, the bulk of the player draws your attention, but the puck isn’t in line with the player, it’s a few feet to either side depending on how he shoots. A goalie can subconsciously end up centering on the player rather than the puck, thus putting himself off his angle.

Shots off the pass are particularly interesting in this, as before the pass comes across you have to glance at the incoming player to see which way he shoots. The difference between a right shooter and left shooter shooting off the pass can be as much as 6-7 feet meaning a drastic difference in angle and thus how much you need to push over to be on the proper angle for the point where the puck is struck.